The Stone Tapestry creates a mythical, magical, unknown experience around nature, with a mixture of ritualistic performance, sonic patterns, slippery sounds, and surprising and strange beauty. All of this takes place with a stretched sense of time.
“A lot of what attracts me to this kind of writing is the idea of the unknown, or of things that exist beyond the edges of comprehension.” – Jeff Herriott
Movement 1: Clouds of Stone
for sextet and electronics – 15 minutes
flute, vibraphone, pipes, crystal glasses, and crotales
Movement 2: Between the Sun and the Shade
for duo and electronics – 4 minutes
contrabass or bass flute and glass bowls
Overall, the piece was conceived as a collage, almost like separate chapters in a narrative, but with large jumps in time between each chapter.
Movement 3: Luminous Stones
for sextet and electronics – 5:30 minutes
alto flute, vibraphone, and 4 players scraping stones on wood
In some cases, performers are imagined as discovering or describing an ancient myth, while in others they are participants in the myth itself, with meaning unearthed through ritualistic patterns.
Movement 4: Beneath a Granite Sky
for percussion quintet and electronics – 7 minutes
gongs and crystal glasses
The elements from which the composer draws his inspiration are:
Patterns in nature – connections between things being formed on their own
Extreme calm and stillness juxtaposed against intense activity
Slow movements, like wind blowing or leaves rustling
Long spans of time as the earth changes
Movement 5: Consciousness Floats into the Wind
for duo and electronics – 10 minutes
flute and vibraphone
Consciousness Floats into the Wind is the central movement of the work and serves as the focal point for many of the piece’s larger ideas.
Movement 6: Wanderer Hymn
for solo and electronics – 6 minutes
contrabass and/or bass flute
All of this occurs alongside human ritualistic behavior within natural environments – such as people building things from stone, participating in religious ceremonies, or journeying across the earth.
Movement 7: Purification of the Stone
for percussion quintet – 5 minutes
gongs, pipes, and stones dropped into a bucket of water
“Another thing I find fascinating about nature is the way that patterns emerge under close attention, from the symmetry in snowflakes, to the ways that leaves bunch together in the grass, or to the lines that form in sand over time. These almost feel like puzzles to be discovered or unlocked. Although I know intellectually that there aren’t external forces at work, there’s something mysterious about the ways that these patterns exist, and there’s an element of surprise in their discovery.”
Movement 8: Lament of the Stone
for sextet – 6 minutes
alto flute, 2 vibraphones, cymbals, and stones dropped into a bucket of water
“It’s important to me that the work is left open-ended and unexplained. Although at some deeper level I hope the piece contributes to a greater appreciation of nature and our earth, as well as serving as a reminder to slow down, I also want to leave it open so that listeners can find whatever they want and make their own connections between the titles, the sounds, the images, and the performance. The titles, gestures, and ideas were intentionally specific enough to draw connections between things, but not intended to create any specific meaning.”
Movement 9: Draping the Walls with Ice
for percussion quartet – 3:30 minutes
crystal glasses or bowls, crotales, and electronics
This music deserves a form of performance that goes beyond the classical concert situation, dispensing with a traditional distribution of roles between instrumentalists and audience. The musicians step back as individuals to give space for all that lies beyond the performative. So it comes naturally to look for an extension into this unknown, where the material can also be represented visually, in parallel to the music.